By John Helmer, Moscow
@bears_with
Lenin hasn’t been a favourite of President Vladimir Putin’s. He’s derided him: “Ukraine appeared in 1922…Now the grateful descendants are smashing monuments to Lenin, the founder of Ukraine.”
The second last time he mentioned Lenin, in February 2024, Putin blamed him. “For some unknown reasons, he transferred to that newly established Soviet Republic of Ukraine some of the lands together with people living there, even though those lands had never been called Ukraine; and yet they were made part of that Soviet Republic of Ukraine. Those lands included the Black Sea region, which was received under Catherine the Great and which had no historical connection with Ukraine whatsoever.”
The last time Putin spoke of Lenin he said he was in favour of burying him, but not of going against public opinion on preserving him in Red Square. Last December he said “The same goes for the burial of Lenin’s body. Someday, society will probably come to this. But today, especially today, we must not take a single step that would split the society in Russia. That’s how I see it.”
Putin has had less to say about Lenin’s method for deciding what to do at crisis moments for the survival of the country and himself. When Lenin asked in his 1902 book, What is to be Done? he described the choice to be faced this way. “We are marching in a compact group along a precipitous and difficult path, firmly holding each other by the hand. We are surrounded on all sides by enemies, and we have to advance almost constantly under their fire. We have combined, by a freely adopted decision, for the purpose of fighting the enemy, and not of retreating into the neighbouring marsh, the inhabitants of which, from the very outset, have reproached us with having separated ourselves into an exclusive group and with having chosen the path of struggle instead of the path of conciliation. And now some among us begin to cry out: Let us go into the marsh! And when we begin to shame them, they retort: What backward people you are! Are you not ashamed to deny us the liberty to invite you to take a better road! Oh, yes, gentlemen! You are free not only to invite us, but to go yourselves wherever you will, even into the marsh. In fact, we think that the marsh is your proper place, and we are prepared to render you every assistance to get there. Only let go of our hands, don’t clutch at us and don’t besmirch the grand word freedom, for we too are “free” to go where we please, free to fight not only against the marsh, but also against those who are turning towards the marsh!” .
Now that Putin agrees that in the present war Russia is surrounded by enemies on all sides, and he must make the choice between the “path of struggle” – since Sunday, June 1, this is now war at the point of nuclear arms — and the “path of conciliation” – that’s President Donald Trump’s peace terms – what will Putin decide to do?
Moskovsky Komsomolets, a mass circulation newspaper and tribune of popular opinion, has called for the same “determination and harshness” against Ukraine as Israel has shown against Hamas. Boris Rozhin, speaking for the Russian military opinion and editor-in-chief of the widely read military blog, Colonel Cassad, said: “I hope that the military-political leadership will find a way to adequately respond. The blow should be painful… As long as we are waging a limited war, the enemy is waging a total war, the purpose of which is the destruction of our country and people. And no peace talks will change this. The longer it is in coming, the more unpleasant surprises.”
The circle of advisors around Putin urge him to downplay the attack as “terrorism” and ignore the “terrorists” as European, not American proxies in the attack. Vzglyad, a Kremlin platform for strategy, has editorialized that “all this is being done with the connivance of Ukraine’s European partners. But such actions are not capable of intimidating Moscow. Now the initiative in the conflict belongs to Russia.” Vzglyad added: “Maybe our new successes will still be able to bring Ukraine to reason. We openly demonstrate the ability to show mercy, which says a lot about the sincerity of the Russian authorities in their aspirations for peace.”
A well-informed Russian military source says Putin has decided not to retaliate for the moment. The launch of the Oreshnik is unlikely now, the source believes; perhaps later “only if there is certainty that Trump will not deliver. But [now] maybe a measured one [strike] to help him focus.”
The source explains Putin’s decision-making. “The political functionaries [Kremlin, Foreign Ministry] have their focus on the Memorandum and expect it will be signed. Now we wait for Trump to deliver. Rubio sent [Senator Lindsey] Graham to [Vladimir] Zelensky to accept it. He talks best with Zelensky. Our side has some more patience before replying to the ‘terror attacks’ [sarcastic laughter]. This is because all the assurance we have from the Americans is that the outcome of discussions will be positive. A Russian military response of large proportions can wait. We have patience. It will happen if [emphasis] Trump will not deliver Ukraine on Memorandum-1.” How long will the Kremlin give Trump? the source was asked. “Several weeks, not months.”
Several hours after the source said this, Putin confirmed this at a meeting on Wednesday afternoon with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and other officials. Putin did so by ignoring the Ukrainian attacks on the five nuclear bomber airfields. Focusing only on the bridge and railway attacks in Kursk and Bryansk, he called them “a targeted strike against civilians, and for all international standards such actions are called terrorism. All crimes that were committed in relation to civilians, including women and children, on the eve of the next round the proposed peace talks in Istanbul were certainly aimed at disrupting the negotiation process. [This was a] strike on the civilian population intentionally. This only confirms our fears that the illegitimate regime in Kiev, which once it had seized power, has gradually degenerated into a terrorist organization, and its sponsors become Accomplices of terrorists.”
Lavrov responded at the meeting, also by avoiding explicit mention of the airfield strikes: “Despite all this, Vladimir Vladimirovich, and despite the new major criminal provocations in the last few days, I would consider it important not to succumb to these provocative actions, clearly aimed at disrupting negotiations and continuing to receive weapons from European countries.”
Russian retaliation, it has been decided and now announced publicly, waits on the Trump Administration to respond to the Russian terms which have been tabled in Istanbul. Read Sections I, II, and III of the Russian Memorandum here.
Over the 72 hours since the Kiev regime claimed credit for planning and executing the successful attack on Russia’s nuclear bomber fleet, Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Secretary of Defense Peter Hegseth have kept silent. Asked for Trump’s reaction, the White House press spokesman was evasive, saying instead: “Well, look, the reaction is this war needs to come to an end. And this war has been, uh, brutal from both sides. Too many people have died and the president wants this war to end at the negotiating table. And he’s made that very clear to both leaders, both publicly and privately.”
That the June 1 attack may have removed the point for Putin to continue at the negotiating table is not accepted at the White House because the Kremlin has denied it. Putin’s message for Trump was conveyed Lavrov in a telephone call to Rubio eight hours after the attacks. Rubio’s “read-out” on the conversation was the shortest in the State Department history of crisis communications with the Russians.
The White House negotiator for peace terms, General Keith Kellogg, is, until now, the only senior US official to acknowledge that the Ukrainian strike was strategic warfare. “The risk levels are going up”, Kellogg told Fox News late on June 3. “Any time you attack the [nuclear] triad, it’s not so much the damage you do to the triad, it’s not so much the damage you do to the triad itself, the delivery vehicles, the bombers, it’s the psychological impact you have… it shows Ukraine is not lying down on this. We can play this game too.”
Kellogg added an apparent qualifier to his admission the Kiev regime has not been engaging in terrorism. “We [the Ukrainians] can raise the risk levels that are, to me, basically unacceptable”.
Listen to the discussion with Nima Alkhorshid and Ray McGovern.
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